Brought to You by www.SEPP.org, The Science and Environmental Policy Project

By Ken Haapala, President

Quote of the Week:“On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?” – Lord Macaulay, [H/t Matt Ridley]

Number of the Week:Up to a 50% increase in efficiency?On to Chile: Some seem to be disappointed with the outcome of the 24th Conference of Parties (COP-24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Katowice, Poland, in a coal mining district. Rather than adopting hard, fast rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the delegates adopted vague generalities and promised to do more. Reading through the “bureaucratic speak,” of the concluding remarks by the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, read by Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the stated goals were not accomplished. The Secretary General wrote:

“I’d first like to thank the Presidency of the COP for the enormous efforts it deployed to organize this 24th session in Katowice, Poland.

America turned into a net oil exporter last week, breaking 75 years of continued dependence on foreign oil and marking a pivotal — even if likely brief — moment toward what U.S. President Donald Trump has branded as ‘energy independence.’

The shift to net exports is the dramatic result of an unprecedented boom in American oil production, with thousands of wells pumping from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico to the Bakken in North Dakota to the Marcellus in Pennsylvania.

While the country has been heading in that direction for years, this week’s dramatic shift came as data showed a sharp drop in imports and a jump in exports to a record high. Given the volatility in weekly data, the U.S. will likely remain a small net importer most of the time.

Brought to You by www.SEPP.org, The Science and Environmental Policy Project

By Ken Haapala, President

Quote of the Week:“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”— Herbert Spencer [H/t William Readdy]

Number of the Week:42 Billion barrels

Old Science v. New “Evidence Free Science”: SEPP Chairman emeritus Fred Singer is “old school.” He does not make predictions until the facts are gathered, the evidence. Perhaps it was because he began his long professional career by using high altitude rockets to gather evidence about the atmosphere including measuring the energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays; the distribution of stratospheric ozone; the equatorial electrojet current flowing in the ionosphere and publishing the first studies on subatomic particles trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field: radiation belts, later discovered by James Van Allen.

An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel.

OPEC’s bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day.

Investment guru David Stockman warns that stocks would take a nosedive if the U.S. imposes sanctions against Saudi Arabia. “I think the market will take a big spill,” he recently told Fox Business Network.

President Donald Trump said Thursday it “certainly looks” like missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead and warned of “very severe” consequences for the killing, Bloomberg said.

OPEC is struggling to add barrels to the market after agreeing in June to increase output, an internal document seen by Reuters showed, as an increase in Saudi Arabia was offset by declines in Iran, Venezuela and Angola.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies agreed in June to boost supply as U.S. President Donald Trump urged producers to offset losses caused by sanctions on Iran and to dampen rising prices.

Was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and then his body cut up with a bone saw and flown to Riyadh in Gulfstream jets owned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?

So contend the Turks, who have video from the consulate, photos of 15 Saudi agents who flew into Istanbul that day, Oct. 2, and the identity numbers of the planes.